EGO

3 Reasons Why your Small Business Should Utilize Guest Blogging

2013-05-13T04:48:00.002-07:00

Don’t you think you think you need a guest blogger who’ll be responsible for building backlinks and churning out guest posts for your company on a regularly basis?

Tell me, how much do you think you’ll make if you could atleast, generate 30,000 visitors to your small business blog in the next 6 months?

As a small business owner, you’ve certainly heard about guest blogging, but why haven’t you utilized it in your business?

This post is not meant to criticize you in anyway, rather, it’s meant to make you realize how much you can achieve through guest blogging.

Let me tell you something you don’t know:

I started out online with no connection, traffic, and in debt and in the space of 4—8 months, I was able to build a blog that averages atleast, 400 visitors daily.

Guest blogging made it possible!

If you’re reading this content (as a small business owner) I’d assume you don’t know anything about guest blogging; right?

For the sake of the people just hearing about it for the first time, let me briefly explain:

Guest blogging is the process of writing quality content for another blog with backlinks to your site. It’s that simple!

Guest blogging is effectively and helpful in the sense that,

It helps to drive traffic
It helps to generate leads
It helps in establishing a strong online visibility
It establishes your expertise
It makes you more money!

Having experienced the results of guest blogging in my business, I guarantee that you’d experience tremendous growth if you utilize it.

Having spent more than 2 years as a professional writer and blogger, I’m proud to tell you that utilizing guest blogging in my business was the best decision I’ve ever made.

Guest blogging alone, brought in over 5,000 visitors to my blog within the first 5 months!

Think about what 5,000 visitors can do to your business? Imagine only 500 among these 5,000 buys a product worth over $50, that’s a whopping $25,000!

I owe my business and financial stability to guest blogging; and that’s one of the major reasons why I decided to share this detailed post with you.

Are you ready to roll with me on a guest blogging adventure?

Let’s move on! ( just kidding)

It builds Your Email List

Imagine what it feels like to wake up one morning only to find out that over 200 people are subscribed to your email list. Guest blogging is a sure way to make that happen.

I’ve written guest posts that added over 50 people to my email list and I’ve written ones that added over 90 subscribers within 24 hours! If you’re on a low advertising budget, then you should give guest blogging a try!

If you can write quality guest posts for top A list blogs, be assured that you have the capability to add more than 50 subscribers your email list.

I’m not saying this to convince you; no! I’m only telling you what has worked for my business. I’m a professional guest blogger, and I run a guest blogging service so I know what works and what doesn’t work

Guest blogging alone has brought in more than 20,000 visitors in the past 7 months; think about what 20,000 visitors can do for your business.

Think about how much profits you’ll pull in if you can drive just 20,000 visitors to your blog in five months!

Pro tip: be strategic; only contribute to top A list blogs; that’s what works!

Guest Blogging Will Build Your Search Authority

For the past 1 year, I’ve written and published over, 289 guest posts for both myself and clients. I’ve written guest posts that have brought in over 200 visitors in 24 hours and I’ve also written ones that has brought as low as 10 visitors.

In fact, some of my blog posts rank on the first results of the search engines.

Think about it; imagine what it feels like to rank for a competitive keyword in your niche?

Imagine how much profits you’d pull in

Pro tip: Guest blogging will improgve your SEO and build your domain authority if you go about it the right way.

Guest Blogging Builds a Raving Social Media Fan Base

Do you know that guest blogging can help you get up to 40 Twitter followers within 24 hours?

During my initial days as a guest blogger, I only had about 10 Twitter followers but when I started contributing quality guest posts to top blogs in my niche, I grew my Twitter fan base to over 200 in 2 months!

Pro tip: if you want to utilize guest blogging just to build a fan base, then include a link in your posts and encourage others to follow you!

Your Business Is Important to Me!

If you’re planning on launching a guest post campaign or want to give guest blogging a try, you should contact me.

I know how it works; and I have custom tailored writing services designed for you irrespective of how large or small your business is.

If you have any guest blogging related question, want to collaborate with me to move your startup or small business forward then get in touch!

ANNUAL BLOG REPORT XI

2013-05-07T23:47:00.000-07:00

I have now been blogging for 11 years and published 2705 posts. My intention is to continue to publish stuff on EGO blog for at least 11 more years..., but I must admit that I have been thinking of putting the blog on a temporary hiatus. One reason for taking a blog break is that during the years of blogging, I have been adding new blogs to my content creation portfolio. At the moment, I am publishing additional content at the following places:

It could be hard to update all the above mentioned blogs on a regular basis. I will ask my fellow bloggers and contributors to write guest posts now and then. You will soon be able to read posts by a new guest blogger, Daniel Adetunji of Infowland.

As I wrote in my post, ANNUAL BLOG REPORT X, the main thing for the future will still be my EGO podcast on BlogTalkRadio. I have an idea to start a new site focusing on new media broadcasts in contrast to the mainstream media stations out there.

Pajamas at the Gate

I am planning to contact Influads for facilitating sponsorships of my podcast show.

One For You, New England (The SSP)

What kind of stuff will I publish in the future? I will go back to the philosophical core of EGO and write more posts on epistemology (reason), ethics (egoism) and politics (laissez-faire capitalism), but I will also mix it up with funny cat meme material, due to the fact that "Internet is made of cats"...

Internet Is Made Of Cats

As an ending note, I want you to stay tuned for my new project, Americanized.org. Please go to John Cox's post, Website Banner Commission, and read the comment thread and you will get "insider information" about the work of art.

cryptonaut-in-exile: Hide - "Don't trust him. He's got a sliver of ice ...

2013-04-21T09:17:00.001-07:00

cryptonaut-in-exile: Hide - "Don't trust him. He's got a sliver of ice ...: Hide Series 7, Story 10 (Overall Series Story #235) Doctor Who has a rich tradition of gothic, ghostly, horror-tinged stories. &qu...

GOOGLE+ COMMENTS ON BLOGGER

2013-04-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

From Google's official blog (Bringing Google+ Comments to Blogger):

Bringing Google+ Comments to Blogger Reading and responding to comments can be one of the most rewarding aspects of blogging. Not only do they help you connect with your readers, they can also inspire later blog entries. The challenge, oftentimes, is following all the conversations around your content—on Google+, for instance, as well as on your website. So we're making things a lot simpler.

(Googleblog.blogspot.com, April 18, 2013.)

Do you think that this new feature will give other comment services, e.g., Disqus, Livefyre and CommentLuv a fighting match?

JESUS, SOCIALISM AND HUGO CHAVEZ

2013-03-05T23:16:00.000-08:00

From Time magazine:

“Capitalism is the way of the devil and exploitation. If you really want to look at things through the eyes of Jesus Christ — who I think was the first socialist — only socialism can really create a genuine society.” — Chávez, on Christ’s economic views, in 2006.
(Time.com, March 5, 2013.)

Illustration by John Cox.

LOL CATS CREATING BUZZ & BIZ

2013-01-11T17:06:00.000-08:00

It is amazing how cats could create a such online buzz and big business. I am missing Morris the cat very much, but Robin & Rufus are our family's precious cats nowadays.

Robin & Rufus

Here is an excerpt from Rahul Varshneya's interview with Ben Huh, CEO and founder of Cheezburger (featuring LOLcats):

Rahul Varshneya: What are your greatest learnings as an entrepreneur, things that you would give as advice to an aspiring entrepreneur?

Ben Huh: Don’t have a fear of talking about your failures. Don’t hide your mistakes. Because we know that running a startup is really hard, and it’s a lot harder if you lie about it. It’s a lot harder if you can’t be honest about the situation you’re in, and you can’t be honest about asking for help.

(http://rahulvarshneya.com, December 20, 2012.)

You could read what I learned from my business failures in my post (from 2009), Five Lessons Learned from my Start-up — And why I’d Do it Again, on Open Forum (powered by American Express).

Let's keep the game going! Please add your thoughts in the comment section.

Game For Cats

UPDATE 01/13/2013:

Check out Catmoji! Hat tip to Sarah Lane of The Social Hour.

HITTING THE FOLLOW LIMIT ON TWITTER

2013-01-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

How many tweeps could you handle? Is the magic number 150 (Dunbar's number)? Could it be a good idea to try to increase the amount of people you are following on Twitter, or am I on the "wrong" path...

Do you think that @twitter will continue to adhere to its "follow limit" forever? ;) I want to follow new tweeps. support.twitter.com/articles/66885…
— Martin Lindeskog (@Lyceum) January 6, 2013

From Ev Williams's post, Making Progress on Spam:

There Is No Magic Number

So, our challenge is to curb this type of behavior without interfering with non-spammy users—some of whom may just be very enthusiastic followers. What is a reasonable number of people to follow, anyway? Most users may have a hard time finding 500 accounts they are interested in—while others would think a limit of 10,000 is too low.

Also, people approach Twitter in different ways. Some think you should follow everyone who follows you. Personally, I don't because that would render Twitter unusable for me. I "only" follow about 700 accounts—less than 5% of the 16,000 who follow me. (Mr. Obama may have time to keep up with 50,000 people, but I'm a busy guy!)

The point is, there is no right or wrong. And there is no perfect formula. We do our best by taking a multi-dimensional approach. We look at a number of factors—including how many people are following you back—before applying limits. We don't reveal exact limits, because it's somewhat complicated and, more importantly, if you were to tell spammers exactly what the filtering rules are on your email or, say, Google's PageRank, they'd just engineer their way around them much more easily.

(blog.twitter.com, August 7, 2008.)

Here is my comment (BizSugar) on Valentine Belonwu's post, How to Promote Your Business on Twitter? Here are 7 Awesome Tips:

Twitter is one of my favorite social media channel. I have participated in this kind of cocktail party, listening to several radio stations of lifestreams, since 2007. Right now I am looking for a tool to help me clean up some of Twitter users I am following, so I can follow new tweeps. I have reached the "follow limit". Twitter has put a cap at 2000 users that you are following. I am following over 4000 users at the moment, but have "only" 3800 followers, so I can't follow new tweeps at the moment. Do you have tips on a tool that take care of this situation?

Valentine suggested that I should test out JustUnfollow. Don't you think that Codigami Technologies Pvt. Ltd's video demo is inspired by CommonCraft?! ;)

JustUnfollow - find who unfollowed you on twitter

Do you know about the different Twitter follow limits? I don't hate the limit as Isla McKetta, but I agree with much of her statements. Here is an excerpt from her post, Why I Hate the Twitter Follower Limit:

I follow back. Not indiscriminately, but if you want to take time to get to know me, I’d like to get to know you too. We can do that on Facebook, but unfortunately you’ll have to make the first move on Twitter (and wait until I hit some magical unpublished ratio—PR and the Social Web says the magic formula is number of followers plus 10%—that means I can follow you back).

(Portent.com, September 17, 2012.)

It is up to the folks at Twitter to set their own rules, but personally I don't understand their reasoning with the limit:

When you reach a daily or total limit and we show you an error message, you've hit a technical limit imposed to limit egregious behavior by spam accounts and to prevent strain on the site.

(support.twitter.com)

Kathy Colaiacovo: I promise you, I am not a spammer! ;)

Twitter does have limits set in place with regards to ratios of following (who you follow) and followers (who follows you) and their preference is to have more followers than following. They do this for one main reason – to keep spammers at bay. If you follow 1500 people and only 150 follow you back – the first question people ask is ‘why is no one following this person?’ and assumptions are made that you are trying to ‘talk’ to more people than want to talk back to you which = SPAM ALERT!

(social4business.com, January 30, 2011.)

Before I test JustUnfollow, I want to hear your thoughts on this issue and tools you have used in order to keep your Twitter feed nice and tidy.

WEEKLY REVIEW 1

2013-01-06T23:57:00.000-08:00

This year I will do my utmost to take time and do a weekly review of my worklife activities. I will start out with the first week to say that I must start to block out time for the weekly review.

What do think is the best time to do a weekly review? I have set the alarm on Saturday at 8 AM for a point in time for reflection and introspection. Maybe a morning during the weekend will be a good time for a weekly review?

by Jinho.Jung

Things to go through:

Scan through the appointments and notes in the Moleskine notebook that have been during the week. Go back a couple of weeks to see if I have missed something and browse ahead a couple of weeks in the calendar to see what is coming up in the near future.

Check the personal kanban workflow whiteboards (to-do, doing, done). Any bottlenecks or constraints?

Go through the Eisenhower matrix with do first things, scheduled activities, delegated stuff and things that I shouldn't do at all.

Check in-basket for papers that should put into the workflow system or filed away ("tickler" file, reference material, or circular file).

Scan through email messages in the inbox, archive old stuff, and do an Unroll.me session.

Check the mobile phone for updates and notifications.

Write down to-do things, next actions, and update Trello project board app.

Read some pages in a productivity / time management book or e-book.

Go out for a walk, listening to a podcast or audio book.

How would you conduct a weekly review?

EGO PODCAST FOR THE WIN

2013-01-06T17:50:00.000-08:00

Please listen to my first EGO podcast show in 2013.

Listen to internet radio with Lyceum1776 on Blog Talk Radio

You can subscribe to the RSS feed in order to get notified of new episodes in the future. If you have an iPhone, I recommend you to check out the podcatcher, Downcast app and then add my podcast to it. Do a search on "EGO Blog Talk Radio" and you will find it.

I would appreciate it very much if you could take some time and go to the show page on iTunes and give some stars and write a short review of my podcast. :)

Please feel free to add a comment on the show episode by using your Facebook login credentials and go to EGO podcast Facebook page and continue the conversation!

Here are some show notes:

Baby 2013 cartoon by John Cox.

Beyond 2012: Why the World Didn't End - NASA

New Year's Resolutions - my post, WRITING DOWN NEW RESOLVING THOUGHTS (December 27, 2007)

Tips on guests, topics...

Schedule in the future: once a month, starting in February, later on fortnightly and then every week. I will do podcasts now and then with other tools too, e.g., Audioboo and Soundcloud.

The word, podcast = (i)Pod + (broad)cast. WikiPedia, CommonCraft, HowStuffWorks.

Description of the show:

Reason - Egoism - Laissez-Faire Capitalism

How to use social media in a rational way.
Apply the trader principle in your business philosophy.
Capitalize on the good things in life.

Who First Coined the Phrase Laissez faire? - Adam Smith's Lost Legacy blog by Gavin Kennedy.

Happy New Year by Myrhaf.

Please feel free to add your thoughts in the comment section! Stay tuned for the next EGO podcast!

SP mic.

365 WAYS TO ENERGIZE YOUR BLOGGING

2012-12-29T02:01:00.000-08:00

With the last regular working day gone for the year, it could be time to think how you could boost your energy for next year. Kelly McCause gave a great tip on +BizSugar (Blog Post Ideas – There’s An App For That). It is an application by Lynette Chandler called BlogEnergizer.

With 10+ blogs I need some energy from a bunny in order to keep going...

What are you "addicted" to? I have cravings for:

So, this weekend I have to munch on Pringles's Xtreme Sizzlin' Spicy Bacon potato crisps and have a licorice candy shot! Cheers to a prosperous New Year!

Robert Palmer - Addicted To Love

Related: My post, THREE GOOD THINGS ON TWITTER.

ANOTHER BOSTON TEA PARTY ON 12/16

2012-12-15T07:22:00.003-08:00

We will have another Boston Afternoon Tea Party on December 16. I will announce a new tea blend, GOT Harbor Tea.

Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Boston Tea Party

BUSINESS AT HEART AND IN MIND

2012-11-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

It could be hard to concentrate on your daily business, thinking about the outcome of the election ("with four more years") in the United States of America, and watching an "elephant in the Middle East room."

I got a wake up call the other day when I did an oxidative stress test and an arterial pulse waveform analysis. The conclusion is that I need to take better care of my body, including my heart. I will increase my intake of antioxidants and a basic amino acid called arginine.

Have you calculated your ideal body weight? It looks like that my weight of 57 kg is the common average and the medical recommendation is between 47 - 62 kg. Do you have any tip on how to measure the calorie intake (1839 calories)?

by Alan Cleaver

BOMB THEM BACK TO THE STONE AGE

2012-09-22T15:34:00.001-07:00

How about "bombing them back to stone age," instead of spending money on a "public service announcement"?

Talking about "stones," could you see the link between the "stoning" scene in Life of Brian and the reactions to the trailer for the film (uploaded by "Sam Bacile" on YouTube in July, 2012), Innocence of Muslims.

Stoning

Reading material:

On the Freedom to Offend an Imaginary God by Sam Harris.
Egyptian Blogger Arrested: Alber Saber - CyberDissidents.org

Listen to my podcast, Remember 911.

TIPS ON AFFILIATE PROGRAMS AND SPONSORS

2012-08-22T16:28:00.000-07:00

For your information: I have removed the 125x125 banner ad for Zeekler penny auction, after reading the news. I never came around to participate in an auction or buying something from the site, as I wrote that I would do in my post, BLOG BREAK (June 24, 2011). I will follow the development in social media and mainstream media.

I am interested in receiving tips on affiliate programs that could fit as a sponsor of this blog. If I don't find product or service that could fill the empty space at the sponsor section, I will probably add another banner for Text-Links-Ads [Editor's note: affiliate link], like the following:

Related: My post, SUCCESS IN 10 STEPS.

THE SOCIAL QUARTER-HOUR

2012-08-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

Here is the new episode of EGO podcast show. The title, the social quarter-hour, is a homage to The Social Hour with Amber Mac & Sarah Lane.

Philosophy - Paul Ryan versus Ayn Rand.
Social Media - new media fatigue?
Good Life - chile pepper.
New type of broacast...

Show notes:

Further Thoughts on Why Objectivists Should Actively Campaign for Romney-Ryan by Craig Biddle. - The Objective Standard.

Ayn Rand And The 2012 Presidential Campaign - The Diane Rehm Show at 11 AM ET. Hat tip: The Harry Binswanger List.

Anil Dash of Dashes.com: Blogging & Business Then And Now by Brent Leary. - Small Business Trends.

The Age of the Platform by Phil Simon.

"Kick it up a notch!" - Emeril Lagasse on WikiPedia.

Jalapeno sauce with Tequila

Cinch.fm mobile audio service shuts down, demonstrates troubles of when you bet on services you don’t control by Robert Scoble - Scobleizer. [Editor's note: My material on Cinch.m and SoundCloud.]

David's tips for online show hosts: how to narrow down your topic like a champion by David Siteman Garland - The Rise To The Top.

THE FALL FORWARD OF EGO PODCAST

2012-08-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

Please listen to my latest episode of EGO Podcast FTW. I have given it the title, Fall Forward as a play with words on the autumn season (fall) and my attempt to push my podcast forward into the future...

The weekly podcast will be around 15 minutes in length and have three sections (philosophy, social media, and the good life). The following is covered during this podcast:

Philosophy - "Books That Shaped America" by Library of Congress.
Social media - guest blogging.
#GoodThing in life - TeaFTW. "Far Too Good For Ordinary People."
EGO podcast - stats, schedule, future plans, etc.

Additional show notes:

The books that shaped America (in chronological order). Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957).
A List of Books by Stephen S. Smith. Future guest blogger on AtlasAnd.
My new post, Far Too Good For Ordinary People, on TeaParty.nu.
BlogTalkRadio’s New Integration With Facebook Gets You More Listens! [sic]

EGO Podcast - stats (premium feature) on BlogTalkRadio.com

Related: David Siteman Garland's post, 3 Questions & an Opportunity for You to Shamelessly Promote Your Web Show/Podcast.

SITEMETER AND BLOG STATS

2012-08-07T08:14:00.002-07:00

It looks like SiteMeter is having some problems...

I hope it will be resolved in the near future. In the meantime, here is an overview of the blog stats on Blogger:

Related: My post, ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: SITE METER PROBLEM from 2004.

BLOG COMMENTS

2012-08-07T06:01:00.000-07:00

EGO blog has received 300+ comments by readers since the comment feature powered by Blogger was implemented in 2007 with the new layout of the EGO template.

I am sorry that I missed to change the option to allow reader comments in some of the latest published posts. It is now fixed! Please keep 'em coming!

I have now enabled the threaded commenting feature on the blog.

Here are two great posts on comments on blogs:

How to get more comments by Scott Berkun of WordPress.com (Automattic, Inc.).
Are Blog Comments Worth It? by Georgina Laidlaw - GigaOM.

What is your take on the following comment platforms: Disqus, IntenseDebate and Livefyre?

by miss miah

INTERVIEW WITH ANITA CAMPBELL

2012-08-06T06:40:00.003-07:00

I interviewed Anita Campbell on May 18. [Editor's note: I am sorry for the technical glitch around 51 min. Anita Campbell took over and ended the show in a great way! :) I have some "endnotes" for about 10 minutes at the end of the program.]

INTERVIEW WITH DAVID STIERNHOLM

2012-08-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

I interviewed David Stiernholm on August 23, 2011. [Editor's note: I am sorry for the technical issues. Please fast forward circa 12 minutes and listen to my interview with David Stiernholm.]

I have written a guest post on David Stiernholm's blog, Strukturbloggen. Another post will be published this week.

TUNING IN

2012-08-06T05:44:00.000-07:00

Here is a short "commercial break" from my summer break! ;) I will create a new EGO podcast during this week, announcing some news and plans for the future.

In the meantime, I will publish two posts, highlighting two interviews I have done.

by Tropic~7

EGO BLOGGER PROFILE ON GOOGLE PLUS

2012-08-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

I have now migrated my EGO blogger user profile to Google+. Read A Googler's post, Socialize and grow your blog with Google+.

Related: My posts, "ABOUT ME" / BLOGGER USER PROFILE PAGE and GOOGLE PLUS ONE FEATURES.

TRANSLATE EGO BLOG

2012-08-04T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have added Google's Translate gadget to the blog. You could now translate EGO blog into 60+ languages. Interlingua is not included yet...

[Editor's note: Roland Horvath: What's your take on the Hungarian translation?]

9 Lessons Learned from Using Reddit

2012-07-29T06:58:00.001-07:00

Jim Woods gave me the permission to use this referenced blog post (Nine Lessons Learned from Using Reddit) as a guest post for EGO on Blogspot.

Starting a new blog focused on politics, I decided to try reddit as a source to kickstart some traffic. As reddit referrals are now 50% of my traffic, I think that the experiment has had a successful start, so let me share some of my lessons learned.

Self-promoting blog content on reddit is easy and without significant friction.
The reddit post title attracts the interest as that is what the users primarily will see, so experiment and test.
Reddit’s system for voting and comments are used actively and provide insightful metrics when feedback is not being left on a new blog.
Older evergreen blog posts that are not attracting traffic can be resurrected with a reddit post.
Subreddits are great for doing segmentation testing as you can target specific communities and tailor titles to that community.
Posting the same post to different subreddits on different days can keep posts active overtime and allow for easy differentiation of traffic from different subreddits for results tracking.
Subreddits have their own personalities and can sometimes respond differently than their name would suggest.
Controversy resulting from matching a post with a subreddit can help traffic to your site even if it is not helping your link karma. Highly recommended.
Reddit offers a good opportunity to reach new potential readers from outside your usual circles of communication.

If you have not been using Reddit to promote your own blog content, using the above lessons learned, I have a suggestion for how to start with a test using the traffic stats already tracked for your blog.

Start by picking seven of your posts that you think deserve more eyes. In doing so, do not ignore older posts that still have timely information.
Brainstorm types of people that you think would be interested in each specific post.
Use the search feature on reddit to find subreddits that are a community for those types of people.
Throughout the week, submit links for your posts to various subreddits and track the results using your own blog’s traffic stats.
At the end of the week, review your own lessons learned and plan how you could use reddit to promote your blog content.

You can check out reddit’s FAQ for how-to details. If you try this experiment, please share your own lessons learned.

Jim Woods blogs about politics at Selfish Citizenship (selfishcitizenship.wordpress.com).

JIM WOODS

2012-07-29T06:48:00.001-07:00

Jim Woods is the second guest blogger this summer. Jim Woods blogs about politics at Selfish Citizenship (selfishcitizenship.wordpress.com).